Revisiting Blackrock Depths: Prison (Extended into a Key Run)

You must be in spirit form to collect the Shadowforge Key quest from Franclorn Forgewright

Once you’ve completed Blackrock Depths: Prison a few times it’s probably a good idea to start thinking about forging your very own Shadowforge Key. Someone in your party must have a key in order to complete a Blackrock Depths: Upper City run. And once you reach about level 54 or 55 you can expect that most of your groups for Blackrock Depths will intend to do Upper City, not the Prison run.

If you play a Rogue you can probably skip this quest/run altogether because all the gates and locks in Blackrock Depths can be unlocked using Lock Picking.

Just be sure that you have the quest, Dark Iron Legacy, at the start of your run!

Even if you don’t intend to complete the quest any BRD: Prison run can be extended quite easily following this guide. If you find yourself in a good group with an extra 20 minutes or so on their hands, I definitely think it’s worth your time to stick around and kill a couple extra bosses.

The Map

Prison section: Lord RoccorOptional.
This giant rock elemental patrols the Halls of Law – look out for him.

Prison section: Houndmaster Grebmar Optional.

Prison section: High Interrogator Gerstahn
The final boss of the “Prison” run – you should receive a Satchel if you were queued for Blackrock Depths: Prison.

Prison section: Ring of Law
Make sure your entire party is well within the gate before you start the event by running into the very center. The bosses summoned during the event are random. Once complete the western gate will open so you can start your Shadowforge Key run.

Pyromancer Loregrain
This boss stands right in front of the Shrine of Thaurissan. Your quest requires you to bring Ironfel (which we’ll loot off Fineous further on) back to this shrine so we might as well clear the way to the shrine now.

Warder Stilgiss and VerekOptional.

Watchman DoomgripOptional.
If your party has 12 coffer keys between you, you can open all the coffers in the Relic Coffer Vault and summon the Watchman. The stone guardians in the room will also activate, so your tank will need to be ready to pick them up.

Fineous Darkvine
Fineous likes to hide in amoungst the other dwarf mobs in the Halls of Crafting, so keep an eye out for him. After you kill him, every single party member with the quest needs to loot the body for Ironfel. If you’re in a rush to finish, backtrack immediately to the Shrine of Thaurissan to hand in your quest and receive your key. Otherwise, stick around to kill a couple more bosses:

Lord IncendiusOptional.
He’s only a couple pulls further in than Fineous, so might as well kill him I say! From this point you can continue straight ahead, kill millions of dwarfs and eventually reach Bael’Gar along the Dark Iron Highway. However, I recommend turning around and heading back to the Shrine of Thaurissan at this point.

Bael’GarOptional.
Everyone has finished their quest by now – congratulations on earning your Shadowforge Key! You can use that key to reach an extra boss: Bael’Gar. Backtrack to the East Garrison (the floor between the Ring of Law and the Spectator Arena above it) and head west down and out through the locked door using your key. Follow the red path marked on the map to reach Bael’Gar.

Prison vs Upper City and When to Get the Key

The worst thing about queuing for Random Classic Dungeons in your mid-50s is that there’s absolutely no way, once you see the Blackrock Depths loading screen, to know whether the Dungeon Finder expects you to complete a Prison or Upper City run.

If you do receive a Satchel of Helpful Goods now is an excellent time to suggest extending the run into a Shadowforge Key run, provided you or someone else has the quest, and your group is actually well… nice enough that you’re keen to stick with them for an extra half hour or so.

If you don’t receive a Satchel of Helpful Goods you were meant to skip this early section and work your way, using a key or a Rogue, straight towards the “Upper City” and the Grim Guzzler bar. The Upper City run is really long and most groups who clear the first section are usually totally worn out by the mere thought of starting over to do an Upper City run that they give up and drop group instead of continuing.

Best thing to do, in my opinion, is to try and earn your key before there’s even a possibility of ending up in an Upper City run. Which means you should try and pick up your quest the first time you end up in Blackrock Mountains:

Ask your very first Blackrock Depth party members if they have Dark Iron Legacy in their quest log, and if they do, ask them to share it with you; if they don’t:

When everyone has left the group, die, spirit run back down into the instance and pick up the quest.

Travel south from Thorium Point/The Graveyard, in the general direction of your corpse marker on your mini map

As you enter the southern half of your map start looking towards the southern border of the zone for a set of wooden slats which form the path up to Blackrock Mountain. Take that path (I think it’s a bit further east than where your corpse marker on your mini map).

Enter through the giant doors. Blackrock Mountain can be navigated via a giant ring path. The northern door opens out to Searing Gorge, the southern door opens out to Burning Steppes. If you enter from Searing Gorge, turn left and travel a short distance along the ring road.

Climb up the rubble onto the giant chain that links the ring road to the floating rock island in the middle of the mountain. Walk onto the chain, turn right and head down the chain towards the summoning stone (going left takes you to Blackrock Spire – upper and lower).

Head down through the center rooms until you come out the other end. Don’t walk off the edge.

Turn right and you’ll see that the path spirals down until it meets a second chain bridge.

Cross the second, smaller chain bridge and walk up towards the blood elf (this guy exists to port attuned players directly into the raid zone – Molten Core) but just before you reach him, take the right open doorway.

Welcome to the Grinding Quarry. Head north east, weaving between the giant rocks, until you see a wide bridge due north.

Cross the bridge and you’ll see the Blackrock Depths zone portal tucked into the rock face on your right.

Great writeup and very good explanations for acquiring the key. Just one small problem; the quest Dark Iron Legacy is not shareable.

Talking to Forgewright gives you the quest you get as a ghost, yes. But you have to talk to him, listen to his story and complete that short “quest” before he gives you the REAL quest to get Ironfel. If people in your group haven’t completed the short dialogue quest, they will not be eligible for the quest. Most people, having spoken to him once, will accept the next quest, so the chances of anyone being eligible are pretty slim.
.-= Kurn’s last blog: What I Look for in a Holy Pally App =-.

Confirmed; ran this last night with my hubby on alts. He died and grabbed the quest and tried sharing it but could not. At least his alt got the key. I was hoping they’d changed this since I remembered seeing blogs mentioning “share the quest” recently.
.-= Analogue’s last blog: GDKP: Get Your Money’s Worth =-.

When you first talk to Forgewright he gives you a quest which can be shared. That quest though is to talk to Forgewright himself (which you have to be dead for), and you turn that quest in to get the quest to go after Ironfel which cannot be shared.

The key quest is something they really need to fix. It should be within the instance, as it is so critical, or at least shareable. But yes, if your group wipes, remember to pick it up on the way back in.

BTW, one thing that I thought I’d add into your entry, Cassi, is that there seems to be no way avoiding the ‘die’ part before talking to Forgewright. I happened to have the extradimensional ghost revealer in my bags from working on Anthion’s quests in Eastern Plaguelands, but it doesn’t work for revealing the Forgewright. (They ought to just say “only works in Eastern Plaguelands” like the Spectracles do for Shadowmoon, but that’s just me.)Redbeard’s last post: Curse Acquires MMO Champion

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